Clock ticking until new way of doing business

Logistics Modernization Program integration director Cathy Dickens stands next to a countdown clock during the town hall meeting. March 9, 2009 is the programAca,!a,,cs go-live date.

Logistics Modernization Program integration director Cathy Dickens stands next to a countdown clock during the town hall meeting. March 9, 2009 is the programAca,!a,,cs go-live date.

Kathy Harris and the other workers who filled the 650-seat Bob Jones Auditorium on July 16 now know the magnitude of the Logistics Modernization Program.

LMP is about moving the Army supply system into the 21st century. This town hall meeting updated the Aviation and Missile Command work force on the coming change in business processes.

"For me personally I didn't know that it was as big as it's going to be," said Harris, a general supply specialist in the inventory branch at the Integrated Materiel Management Center. "So I think this town hall came at a good time."

Reasons for the Logistics Modernization Program include: Remaining on legacy systems is not viable because of rising costs to support them and they're rapidly aging; to reduce redundant and stovepipe information-technology investments; and to provide improved support to the war fighter.

"It is about trying to learn and becoming more effective and efficient," Maj. Gen. Jim Myles, commander of the Aviation and Missile Command, said.

LMP represents "one of the biggest transformational efforts within the Army," according to Ronnie Chronister, deputy to the commanding general.

"We're going to ask you to change the way you've done things in the past," Chronister said. "It's a different process."

More than 3,700 people will be trained for the program's implementation. A countdown clock on the auditorium stage marked the 235 days left until the March 9, 2009 go-live date.

Cathy Dickens is the LMP integration director for Redstone Arsenal, Corpus Christi Army Depot (Texas) and Letterkenny Army Depot (Pa.).

"We will become more knowledgeable as we implement," Dickens said. "And the more we learn the better we will be."